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This article looks at the environment where most Latin Americans lived until the middle of the twentieth century. Reflecting this basic fact, the region's historiography boasts a long tradition of studies of agrarian movements, haciendas—with a once fiery debate about the putative feudal or capitalist nature of these large landed estates, plantations, estancias, and ejidos (or land-owning Indian villages)—and the peasantry. Both this rich historiographical tradition and newer works on rural life are surveyed.

This article looks at the environment where most Latin Americans lived until the middle of the twentieth century. Reflecting this basic fact, the region's historiography boasts a long tradition of studies of agrarian movements, haciendas—with a once fiery debate about the putative feudal or capitalist nature of these large landed estates, plantations, estancias, and ejidos (or land-owning Indian villages)—and the peasantry. Both this rich historiographical tradition and newer works on rural life are surveyed.